Little Rosey's Adventure: Where have 7 weeks gone?

Rory's first Thanksgiving! He's much smaller than the turkey.

Can you believe that tomorrow Rory will be 7 weeks old? We cannot believe it either! Time just flies, evaporates, just disappears right before my eyes. I'm trying to embrace it, trying to remember to enjoy the "now" rather than worrying about the now passing too fast.

We've had an eventful week. One great discovery this week is the Moby Wrap. A friend lent it to us, and Rory loves it!

Rory is doing well, though we've had to endure and figure out how to work around some crying spells. Poor guy just gets really worked up, really fast. Once you hear it for yourself, you'll understand how heartbreaking it is. And when you pick him up, he immediately snuggles into your chest with relief. Unfortunately, Tuesday night, this happened at 1 in the morning. He's been really good lately about staying wide awake until 3am, but the additional crying was a new treat. By 2:30am, I was desperate. Joe was one wall away trying to sleep, and I was exhausted. Since the car puts Rory to sleep in about 2 seconds, I decided it was time for a drive around the neighborhood. I put him in his carseat, screaming. I thought, once I get him in the car he'll calm down. Put him in the car, more screaming. Drove halfway up our alley until the screaming turned to hoarseness and I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled over in the alley and climbed into the backseat. I couldn't calm him in his seat so I took him out. Instant relief. So now, I'm standing in the alley, at 2:30 in the morning, with a very sad baby (though quiet now), a running car parked basically in the middle of the alley, in the cold. I knew there was no way I would get Rory back in that seat, so I called Joe to rescue us. Joe comes out in his pajamas and carries Rory into the house and I park the car. My mission had failed....almost. Fortunately, due to the excessive screaming, Rory was plum tuckered out, fell asleep and slept like a champ. Can you imagine if any of our neighbors were watching!? I'm sure they thought about calling CPS. As eventful as that evening was, in general Rory's screams are easily comforted by food, pacifier, or a tight squeeze.

Just one of my many attempts to entertain.

On a much happier note, we started something amazing this week. There's a very popular organization in Seattle called PEPS (program for early parent support) that places parents from within a neighborhood with similar aged babies in a group that meets once a week for 12 weeks. We signed up awhile ago and just got placed in our group, and had our first meeting last night. It's amazing. There are 8 couples who all live within 3 miles of our house, all with babies that were born between October 20 and November 7th! Isn't that incredible!? There's a group leader, and we go to a different person's house each week. There are discussion topics, but really it's just a time to hang out with other people enduring the same thing at the same time. Everyone was so nice, we are so excited! We don't mean to brag, but Rory was definitely the cutest baby there. We have heard from MANY people in Seattle (Joe's boss, both my doctors, and many friends) that PEPS is amazing. After the 12 weeks of organized meetings, many groups continue to meet. Some are still meeting 20 years later! We are so excited to meet new friends for us and for Rory.

While our house is absolutely a disaster, we did manage to put a Christmas tree up (Joe did all the work) and St. Nick managed to find us in our new apartment, and even knew we had a new family member!

I had my 6 week follow up appointment and my body has seemed to heal just fine, so I hit the gym for the first time yesterday. Our gym has childcare, so yesterday was Rory's first daycare experience! It was about 45 minutes and he slept soundly the whole time. I made sure to go to the tread mill the furthest away to avoid temptation of checking in on him. The very kind Japanese woman told me that if he cried, it was ok and she would take care of him. She made me feel better and hopefully she and Rory will become good friends (translation: hopefully Joe and I will continue to go to the gym). I won't lie, the first day of working out in many many months was rough. In fact, my jog quickly turned into a walk after realizing that nursing moms need new sports bras. :) (Sorry if that is TMI.) But, the Biggest Loser has inspired me, and if they can do it, I can do it. Our gym has free personal training, so tomorrow I'm meeting with one to make a plan. What I'm not telling you is that I also had childcare reserved for today, and I canceled. But back at it tomorrow.

Speaking of daycare, we've been getting ready for Rory to start with a nanny on January 9th. We met a family in the neighborhood next to ours and they have a 6 month old son named Fin. We then found a woman named Shauna and she'll be the full time nanny for both boys. Fin is already with Shauna everyday and it's going great! We feel so fortunate to have a good, loving situation to transition Rory into when I go back to work. We had dinner with Fin's family the other night, and here's Fin and Rory's first picture together!